WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is refusing to allow Texas to enforce restrictions that would force 10 abortion clinics to close.
The justices voted 5-4 to grant an emergency appeal for a stay from the clinics after a federal appeals court upheld new clinic regulations and refused to keep them on hold while the clinics appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court order will remain in effect, at least until the court decides whether to hear the clinics' appeal of the lower court ruling, not before fall.
The court's decision to block the regulations is a strong indication that the justices will hear the full appeal.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would have allowed the state to move ahead with regulations requiring abortion facilities to be constructed like surgical centers. Doctors at all clinics also would be required to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
The clinics said enforcing the new regulations would lead to a second major wave of clinic closures statewide since the law was enacted in 2013. Texas had 41 abortion clinics in 2012; 19 remain.
The admitting privileges requirement already is in effect in much of the state. Stephanie Toti, a lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights who is representing the clinics, said some clinics that closed because doctors lacked admitting privileges might be able to reopen.
The regulations would have left the state with no clinic west of San Antonio. Only one would have been able to operate on a limited basis in the Rio Grande Valley.
The case could be attractive to the justices because it might allow them to give more definition to the key phrase from their last big abortion ruling, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992. States generally can regulate abortion unless doing so places "an undue burden" on a woman's right to get an abortion.
A Section on 06/30/2015